Vindication
by Miss Turing
Summary: "Evidently, even if he wasn't the Boy Who Lived any longer, apparently, he seemed to be incapable of dying properly. From what he'd observed so far, he had been reincarnated into some bizarre world populated by magic ninjas." In which Harry is reborn as Sasuke and isn't an emo little shit.
1. Chapter 1

**1) Death**

He died. It was no surprise to him that he did - after he hit his 150th birthday and he finally started feeling the years weigh on him, he was expecting to keel over for some reason or another. Considering how many life threatening experiences he'd experienced, making it to the ripe old age of 161 was more than he'd ever expected. However, he was expecting to see King's Cross post-mortem like he had for his second death; obviously, that hadn't happened. Instead, he was in a dark, but warm location, smothered on all sides. Considering he was conscious, he would've believed that he was still alive if it weren't for the fact that he was perfectly fine with not breathing; if he concentrated hard enough, he could even still feel the echoes of his heartbeat. Strange; he thought hell would be more… well, hellish.

 **2) Rebirth**

Oh. Well then. That explained a lot.

Evidently, even if he wasn't the Boy Who Lived any longer, apparently, he seemed to be incapable of dying properly. From what he'd observed so far, he had been reincarnated into some bizarre world populated by magic ninjas. Despite the rampant violence and weird ninja shenanigans that were considered normal, he was grateful for his new life; the fact that he had a loving family in this life helped soothe the pain of loved ones that he'd lost. And while the Weasleys had been family to him, the fact that he had an actual older brother now was ridiculously exciting, even if he was mentally older than his nii-chan.

 **3) Resolve**

While he wasn't completely sold on the idea of becoming a ninja, he seemed to have little choice. While his parents would most likely allow it, however grudgingly - he was the "spare" son after all - he'd noticed that as a civilian, he would have little agency: he wouldn't be strong enough to protect the ones he loved, he'd need to hire ninja bodyguards just to leave the village safely, and it wasn't as if the job market was all that great on the civilian side if you didn't have a business or trade to inherit. In addition, as not only just an Uchiha, but also as the son of the clan head, he was a valuable kidnapping target. On principle, he refused to make it easier on them by being weak and defenseless. So despite his distaste in becoming a contracted mercenary - one lifetime as an Auror, coupled with his childhood adventures, was enough excitement for him - he was becoming a ninja anyway. At least he knew he'd be decent at it already.

 **4) Memories**

The loud, blonde kid he'd spotted today was suspicious. More specifically, the way the adults treated him like the scum of the earth was suspicious; it reminded him of how the Dursley's neighbors viewed him back when he lived in Little Whinging. Why did they despise the kid so much?

 **5) Suspicions**

His family was acting strange. It was subtle enough where he didn't notice it at first. Both Itachi-nii and Shisui-nii were too busy for him, yet more and more of his clansmen seemed to be taking less missions; the clan compound was more crowded than ever. He'd also noticed the increase in frowns and mutterings of discontent by many of the older generation, though they took care to speak only when they didn't know he was nearby. He was, to put it mildly, very worried about his family.

 **6) Grief**

His fears had come to pass: his whole family was murdered, except his brother, who was the prime suspect. However, he refused to believe it; despite Itachi-nii's personality flaws, psychopathy nor insanity were included in them. However, even knowing this was little comfort. Even at 168, with his experience in his previous life in mourning, the loss of all the Uchihas hurt. The pity he received from the villagers didn't help either; the moniker of "the Last Uchiha" reminded him a bit too much of his old one as the "Boy Who Lived".

 **7) Inheritance**

Settling his inheritance with the Hokage was an interesting experience. The money and property he received from all his clansmen was not a surprise. His emancipation was a bit of one. However, the fact that as the new Uchiha clan head, he was also the Chief of the Konoha Police Force was very surprising. While the Hokage had some of the ninjas covering the KPD's duties for now, he had to decide the fate of the KPD as soon as possible. With his lack of experience coupled with the lack of officers, what was he to do, however?

 **8) Questions**

His talk with the Hokage about both nii-san and Uzumaki - the blonde kid - were utterly unhelpful. It was rather suspicious how he'd avoided answering anything regarding them. While this gave further credence to Itachi-nii's innocence, he wasn't sure what that meant for Uzumaki's situation. Was it something about the orphan himself that everyone hated, or did the villagers hate his parents?

 **9) Delegation**

The Hokage was more helpful regarding his dilemma for the KPF. While he couldn't resign his position as the Chief - it was apparently written into Konoha's founding treaty, and he didn't want to dissolve the KPF and dishonor the memory of his clansmen, the Hokage had suggested people he could approach to hire as officers. In addition, the Hokage recommended a retired ANBU as his second-in-command. Essentially, until he was older and more able to handle his Police Chief responsibilities, his Deputy would be filling in for him. All he would need to do is read weekly reports and sign off on some paperwork once in a while.

 **10) Snake**

In class today, he learned about the Sannin: Jiraya the toad sage, Tsunade the slug medic, and Orochimaru the snake genius who turned traitor. What was up with these snake-affiliated genii going off the deep end? Regardless, he now had three goals:

1) Prove Itachi-nii innocent.

2) Figure out what was up with Uzumaki.

3) Get his hands on that snake contract.

Despite the hit his reputation would take as a snake summoner, he wanted it out of some twisted sense of petty revenge against Voldemort. The blow it would strike against the snake Sannin would just be a bonus.

* * *

 **A/N:** I thought I had a plot for this when I started, but now that I'm here, I have absolutely no idea where I'm going with this. Whoops?


	2. Chapter 2

**11) Loud**

It was interesting how differently children dealt with crushes in this life. Instead of silently pining from a distance (or the gutsier ones dowsing their targets with love potions, sending "romantic" poetry about their interest's eyes that were green "as a fresh pickled toad" or some such rot, or asking their crush to casually hang out with them - alone - during a Hogsmeade weekend), many of them here seemed unashamed to declare their interests for the whole world to witness.

In other words, he had fangirls.

While they were relatively respectful in their direct interactions with him and his personal space (occasional stalking excepted), it was bizarre how they fought over him, even right in front of him! While Takeda and Yamanaka weren't surprising participants, Haruno was; as far as he knew, before she became very loudly infatuated with him sometime this past week, she used to be a shy little wallflower that stuck to Yamanaka like a limpet; before her transformation, it was debatable whether Haruno or Hyuuga was more timid.

While his fans' stalking did get on his nerves here and there, they were easy to lose when he put forth the effort to bother. They were nice enough to him otherwise, though, so he just let them be; it's not like he had any better solutions: beating them up seemed a bit excessive; acting like Inuzuka or Uzumaki to deter them wouldn't do anything, since they were, presumably, infatuated mostly with his looks, not his behavior; and reporting them to the Hokage, Academy instructors, or (he snorted at the absurd thought) the KPF for such a minor thing would only make him look like a stupid asshole. However, even if they were only minor nuisances, he did wish that they'd find more productive things to do with their time.

He really hoped that they'd reconsider their careers as well since their skills were abysmal. Even when they (literally) fought for his affections, they were unable to injure each other past a few scratches and bruises. While he might worry for them if they actually managed to become ninja with their current abilities, he wished that if they improved, that they'd drop their infatuation with him. Otherwise, they might become even harder to shake off.

 **12) Competence**

The KPF was up and running again. Finally. His deputy, Kimura Yuuta, was a middle-aged, grumpy man of few words, with a stern, serious looking face of few expressions. Considering how quickly he gathered a force of capable officers, and had them up and running patrols, Sasuke was very pleased with his competence and didn't mind the fact that Kimura never seemed to smile nor laugh; he could see why the Hokage had recommended him. He was also a bit amused at the source of his officers as well: a majority of them were mothers that had retired from the shinobi forces in order to raise their children. Apparently, an in village job, with regular hours, that didn't require a specialization in medicine nor intelligence, was highly prized among them; many were more than eager to apply. While it was difficult for him to be considered an authority figure to a bunch of people his parents' ages, he was just grateful that they didn't engage in the cooing and cheek pinching that he'd seen civilian women occasionally partake in. He'd worry about getting their respect later when he was older, when it actually became his problem; until then, he planned on leaving them in Kimura-san's capable hands.

 **13) Nightmares**

It was strange whenever he dreamed of the Massacre. Despite having slept through the whole thing - someone, presumably Itachi, had put him under a genjutsu on the night of the incident that kept him knocked out until the ANBU had stumbled upon him - his mind occasionally conjured up possible scenarios of how his clan was slain while he was asleep; apparently, the report concerning the Massacre and its aftermath was enough for his brain to fill in the blanks.

Even though the compound was now spotless thanks to the ninjas that were hired to clean the place, and he hadn't witnessed any part of the massacre - so he had no physical reason to be wary of the Uchiha compound - maybe it was time for him to look into alternate accommodations; now that he thought about it, living where his family had been murdered was a bit morbid, even for him.

 **14) Loneliness**

"I'm worried about you, Sasuke-kun," Iruka-sensei said. This… was definitely not what he was expecting when the Academy teacher asked him to stay behind after class to speak with him.

"Why? I'm doing fine," Sasuke responded. "Is it my grades, sensei? I know I could've done better on last week's history test, but I didn't think I did that badly."

"No, it's not that. It's just… Are you okay? I know you must be going through a tough time and all," Iruka-sensei explained circumspectly, "and I just wanted to let you know I'm available if you ever want to talk." "Oh. That's… very kind of you, sensei. I'll keep that in mind," Sasuke answered awkwardly. He _really_ didn't want to talk about it.

"Is that all?" Sasuke asked the chuunin, eager to leave this conversation. "Just one last thing, Sasuke-kun. I noticed that you don't really seem to hang out with anyone your age. Your classmates are pretty nice.

"Why don't you befriend them? I think it might be good for you if you did."

 **15) Realization**

"So, yeah, he wants me to talk to people my age, apparently," Sasuke grumbled while perched on a desk piled high with paperwork, swinging the backs of his feet to rhythmically thump on the side of the desk. "What a load of-" Kimura shot him a look "-tripe," he continued. "I'm perfectly fine. I have people to talk to, even if they're old like you."

His deputy looked balefully at him unamused. "So why are you complaining at me?"

"Who else would I complain to?

"…Oh, maybe he has a point," Sasuke mused.

"Sure, brat. Now scram. Find some kiddies to chitchat with. I'm busy with your paperwork."

Sasuke stuck his tongue out at Kimura before he hopped off the desk and walked out of the room, lost in his thoughts.

 **16) Notice**

Someone grabbed him and pulled him aside during one of his weekly KPF visits.

"So, Kimura's been worried about you. Something about not having friends your age..?"

She looked like one of the mom-cops his deputy hired: not old looking, per-say, but not oozing sex appeal like the younger half of the kunoichi population seemed to. He wasn't too sure which one of his officers she was, though. "Have you had any luck yet?" she asked.

"Umm… I'm working on it?" Sasuke stuttered out. Asking someone to partner up to spar with him counted, right? "Kimura's worried? He looks fine to me."

"Of course he's worried. When he mentioned your problem, he got that wrinkle in between his… never mind that. Are you busy tonight?" she asked. "…Not really? But-" "Good," she interrupted him, "come back here at 5. You can come over for dinner and meet my son. Maybe you'll be a good influence on him."

 **17) Shanghaied**

"…Thanks for having me over for dinner, Nara-san," Sasuke muttered somewhat grudgingly while the Nara matriarch dragged him into her home; he finally figured out who she was when he asked Kimura while picking up the weekly reports.

"Call me Yoshino. If you call me Nara-san here in the clan compound, everyone's going to be confused, you know," she answered. "And it's no problem at all. I know you're mature for a kid your age, but you look like you need to eat a bit more," she continued on.

"Now why don't you hang out with Shikamaru out in the back while I get dinner ready? He's probably cloud watching somewhere nearby."

 **18) Commiserating**

Sasuke found Shikamaru in the fields nearby the woods. Like Yoshino predicted, he was laying down on the grassy floor, watching the clouds drift along. Akimichi was next to him, also cloud watching, while munching on a bag of crisps at his side. Sasuke walked closer to them.

"Yo." He half-heartedly waved at them. "Uchiha? What are you… Oh.

"Did my mother invite you?" Shikamaru asked. "Yup," Sasuke grumbled. "How troublesome," Shikamaru said. "Pretty much," the Uchiha replied while bending down to have a seat next to his two classmates.

 **19) Offer**

Cloud watching was pretty peaceful. He could see why Shikamaru enjoyed doing it so much.

"You want some?" Akimichi asked, holding out his half empty bag of crisps. "Thanks, Akimichi," Sasuke said, reaching for a few crisps.

"Call me Chouji, Uchiha." "Only if you call me Sasuke."

The three boys continued to doze off, basking in the peace and silence.

 **20) Peace**

Dinner with the Naras was surprisingly nice, especially since it was something he was shanghaied into. Yoshino's cooking was better than his mediocre skills, he didn't have to extend too much effort into keeping up small talk, and the Naras (and Chouji) didn't seem like they expected anything from him in particular, unlike most of the village.

And while he didn't know anyone at the table particularly well, it was nice not having to eat alone. Again. Like always.

Sasuke mused that it'd be nice to do this again, if the Naras were kind enough to extend an invitation again in the future.

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you guys so much for your support! I'm surprised how many people seemed to have enjoyed it already, especially since this is started off as something I wrote in one of my classes I *seriously* could not bother paying attention to. Also, just a word of advice (or reminder to myself): don't plan on solely writing a fic just in class; you'll stop writing it when you stop going to class, and then where will you be? (aka I started ditching. Whoops?)

I'm not really editing this, and I seriously don't know where it's going plot wise, so it's probably going to have a lot of issues (someone's already found one. Oops? Join me in handwaving everything furiously. XD); hope you guys don't mind too much. It's just nice that I can work on this fic for short periods at a time when I feel like it, which is why I like writing it so much.


	3. Chapter 3

**21) Swarm**

"So, I heard from Yoshino that you went over to her place for dinner. Is that something you do now, Chief?" One of his few non-mom-cop officers ambushed him when he walked into the KPF.

"Errr, what? I mean, excuse me?" Sasuke tried being polite, but it was hard to do so when he was confused with the situation. Heck, he couldn't even recall her name right now (starts with a Ma or Ha, right…?). On a side note, maybe he should get on memorizing his employees' names, considering he was their Chief and all (in name only; that's Kimura's problem).

"You know, you have the whole 'serious business' face going on, so I thought you just wanted to leave the KPF up to Kimura and ignore our existence."

'I do,' Sasuke almost mumbled aloud. "But you went over to Nara's! That means you want to get to know us and stuff, right?"

"Uhh-" Sasuke tried to interrupt but was cut off.

"Yay! Uchiha-chan wants to play with us!" she exclaimed, drawing the attention of the other officers in the room. Instead of the reacting like he expected (giving the pair odd looks, ignoring them, or his favorite, helping him by freeing him from this crazy lady), they joined in swarming him. "Aww, how nice!" "He really needs some meat on his bones." "Isn't he adorable?" Apparently, his previous assessment was completely wrong: kunoichi weren't exempt from the cheek pinching impulse. At. All.

When they gave no sign of stopping, Sasuke tried freeing himself to no avail; it only led to more cooing and pinching. When he called out to his deputy for rescue, Kimura came out of his office to check on the commotion.

"I knew it! You do lov-"

"Carry on, ladies." The man gave him a smirk before walking back into his office and closing the door (that bloody wanker), leaving Sasuke to the tender mercies of his kunoichi tormentors.

Sasuke vowed Eternal Vengeance (and feeling a sense of foreboding for some bizarre reason, downgraded it to minor vengeance).

 **22) Scheming**

While wandering the streets, Sasuke noticed his deputy's trademark trench coat in the distance. He had a bandana on his head for some odd reason and appeared to be chatting with a younger purple-haired kunoichi, one that he didn't recognize as any of his officers. Did Kimura secretly have a life outside of work (!) and actual friends (!)? Was she possibly - Sasuke gasped - his lover?! If so, go Kimura!

Wait, don't 'go Kimura!'; the guy was still an evil bastard who betrayed his Chief. Speaking of which, didn't he promise minor vengeance on Kimura?

 **23) Vengeance**

"Hey Kimura! I know you're into big boobs, but isn't she a bit young for you? I know you might be feeling your age because of how hard I work you, but I'm sure there's a better…" Sasuke trailed off when Kimura turned around. That… wasn't Kimura. Shit.

The kunoichi started cackling. "Maybe I like calling him Daddy."

Sasuke blanched and fled for his sanity.

 **24) Trend**

"So Kimura," Sasuke asked nervously. "Do you know anyone who shares a similar fashion sense with you? Are trench coats all the rage with older ninjas?"

His Deputy groaned while his fingers rubbed at his temples. "Go away, kid. Stop being my problem."

 **25) Musings**

Even after all these years, he still wasn't sure what his verdict was regarding magic in the Elemental Countries. There were many similarities - physics defying stunts, creatures able to talk, a lack of common sense - but was chakra actually an alternate form of magic?

Well, without a wand, he couldn't really test his theory except with potions, and even then, he wasn't sure how this world's plants corresponded with his original one's.

Could he even still talk to snakes?

Speaking of snakes, there was something he could try, in order to try proving his theory…

 **26) Stray**

The Academy was relatively dull, but having people to hang out with was a nice change. Apparently, one cloud watching afternoon and meal together meant that Shikamaru and Chouji now considered him a friend (or close enough of one to eat lunch with).

However, despite all this, Sasuke still wasn't sure how he ended up back in the Nara compound. He had been planning on going grocery shopping before heading home, but the duo had approached him after class, and somehow, between the conversation and amicable silences, he had ended up here once more.

Maybe, if he stayed long enough, they'd feed him again. He felt guilty taking advantage of their hospitality like that, but it sounded so troublesome to get up off the grass at this point…

 **27) Taunt**

It all started during dinner, when Chouji mentioned that he wasn't ready for next week's history test. Sasuke offered his help - like a good person - but he forgot that he got distracted on some of the lectures because of Uzumaki and Inuzuka's pranks.

"…The Nidaime was known for his calm and pragmatic nature, quick thinking, and jutsu creation skills. He was also responsible for creating the Shinobi Academy, the ANBU…" Sasuke squinted at his notes, trying to see through a bright orange paint blob that covered the next few words.

"- the Chuunin Exams, and the KPF," Shikamaru finished. "Shouldn't you know this as the KPF Chief?" he taunted.

"Didn't you sleep through that lecture," Sasuke asked through gritted teeth. "Maybe? What does that have to do with anything?" Shikamaru drawled, lazily as always.

Sasuke's urge to stab was slowly rising. At least Hermione put actual effort into studying back in Hogwarts. Next time, even if Chouji tried to bribe him, he wasn't going to subject himself to this hell.

 **28) Unforeseen**

"Hmm. What's that?"

Sasuke noticed something off when he walked into his room.

"Oh shit! Fuck my life. Really?! Of all things?!" Sasuke complained.

 **29) Unpredictable**

While he knew that he was ready to graduate - to be honest, he probably would've chosen to graduate earlier if it weren't for his brother's supposed psychotic break and his KPF workload - Sasuke felt that the test was a bit ridiculous: the cumulative written test barely covered anything of importance while only requiring a 60%, and the practical just required him to hit the target with kunai 5/10 times (not even the bullseye) and to successfully demonstrate the Clone Jutsu.

How did people not pass this test? They barely tested the basics. They didn't even test for physical fitness. Did Konoha want cannon fodder that badly? He walked out of the Academy and saw his classmates with the Konoha forehead protectors… All but one.

Oh. That was awkward. Well, Uzumaki did claim to be the "number one most unpredictable ninja" for good reason.

 **30) Incidental**

He saw a flash of orange in his peripheral vision. Huh. Despite his apparent failure on the test, Uzumaki became a genin along with the rest of them. How interesting. He added another point to his mental 'Why Uzumaki is suspicious' list before shelving it back to the back of his head and settled down for a short nap.

He had about 10 minutes before Iruka got here to announce the team placements, and he was tired from preemptively trying to do as much paperwork before becoming a "real ninja". He wanted to give himself some leeway while adjusting to the ninja life since he wasn't too sure what to expect, but he was regretting it a bit now; his sleep deprivation was causing him a headache.

Right before he fell asleep,

"GOAL!"

He heard Yamanaka and Haruno stampeding into the room.

He sighed disappointedly. While they were the most likely to pass, did it really have to be them? He really was looking forward to freedom from his fangirls, and while a good number of them didn't pass - as expected - apparently two of his loudest ones did.

He wasn't awake enough for this. He decided to reattempt napping, lowering his head down onto the crook of his elbow.

"Morning, Sasuke-kun!" Haruno stuttered out.

He grudgingly raised his head to greet her, but before he could, she and Yamanaka started to squabble again. He sighed, again, tuning the two of them out. He tried to faceplant into the desk to try napping again - third time's the charm, right? - when he noticed that Uzumaki was in his way, crouching so that his face was right in front of him. What was going on?

He heard more bickering in the background, when someone bumped into Uzumaki and

"Chuu~~"

What.

The hell just happened? The two boys broke their lip lock. He stared at the gagging Naruto, turned and stared at the screaming girls, then turned back to the blond boy to make sure he wasn't going crazy.

Yeah, apparently, that just happened. He was officially done with today.

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you guys so much for all your support so far! There's just random, not important rambling/ranting below this, so feel free to skip it.

Why did I waste so much time thinking up names for minor OCs considering I haven't even bothered using them yet? Also, I realized that I should've named Kimura Yuuto instead of Yuuta; the possible meanings for it are a lot more fitting.

Also, why is it so hard to think of filler text for unimportant explanations? Most of the info's from the Naruto wiki (speaking of which, apparently, it's the KMPF, not KPF, but too late now ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯), but it was hard finding something appropriately "schoolish" to write about.

I ended up graduating Sasuke and co. this chapter because I couldn't think of any more filler topics, and I have parts of the plot I want to get to asap. (Though to get there, I can't mess with canon as much as I'd like so need to figure something out. Hmm…)

Lastly, I forgot I had to Brit-pick and found a mistake already, so just ignore my fails.

Rant done, but just a heads up: not sure if you guys care, but I still haven't finished the series (I stopped when people were getting resurrected en masse for the fight against Obito/Madara/Kaguya). While I kind of know what happens, I don't really… care? (Sorry guys.) I know even less about Boruto. I accidentally found out about fat Anko, though, while double checking information. WHYYYYYYYYYYYY?! (Seriously though, what happened to her?!) (Okay, /rant for real this time.)

So yeah, not sure how much of canon will be left if we ever reach that point, but if we do, I have absolutely no idea about what's going to happen/how much of canon I'm willing to keep.


	4. Chapter 4

**31) Inconsequential**

Iruka-sensei finally walked in, freeing him from the event that most assuredly did. Not. Happen.

With the chuunin's arrival, his classmates started to settle down, and the ones standing went to go grab a seat. Once everyone was seated, he began to speak.

"As of today, you are all fully fledged genin. You will now be joining… honor… uphold… teams and… of Fire…" Sasuke started to doze off for a bit while listening to Iruka-sensei's speech.

 **32) Whinging**

He regrets waking up to this shit.

Seriously though. Haruno and Uzumaki?! The loud fangirl and the one apparently useless enough not to pass that joke of a graduation exam? No offense to either of them - Sasuke was sure that they were nice enough, but he had to trust his genin teammates to have his back until the Chunin Exams (and he most certainly didn't trust these two to be anything other than deadweight unless something changed). Whose bloody idea was this horse shit?

Here's to hoping that they were more competent than they seemed, because otherwise, he might end up having a psychotic break and pulling an Itachi-nii on them.

 **33) Repeat**

Their team's jounin-sensei was late by 3 hours.

By. Three. Hours.

Three!

3(!) hours, surrounded by the noise that Haruno and Uzumaki generated non-stop (how in the world aren't they tired?!).

"Sasuke-kun, I love your hair." "Bastard, are you ignoring me?" "Ahh… umm…" "I'm going to be the Hokage!" "Shut up, Naruto!" "Sakura-chan~~ Go out with-" "Hell no!"

On loop. For three hours.

If they didn't involve him every so often, he would be okay with it since he could tune them out, but this was his attempt at giving them a chance. Ish. It counts since they're both still alive, right?

And to top it all off, once they finally began to calm down, their sensei finally popped up, causing them to start up their yelling once more.

"My first impression is that I hate you guys."

' _Well good for you, you asshole_ ,' Sasuke thought. ' _I'm hating you right about now too._ '

 **34) Prologue**

The team introductions weren't going terribly well. So far, all he found out that Hatake was an open perv, Uzumaki had a ramen and Hokage fixation (nothing new), and Haruno, well…

Okay, so while he didn't bother doing anything about the fangirls back in the Academy because there were too many of them - and he'd probably never deal with most of them again, Haruno was supposedly his future teammate; he had to nip this in the bud now (bloom? It was probably too late to call it a bud. Whoops). And seriously, those giggles were really creeping him out.

Well, the perv _was_ supposed to be his sensei…

He gave Uzumaki a considering glance before discarding him as an option. He wasn't dealing with that, especially after t _he event that most definitely didn't happen._ He slid his attentions over to Hatake. Well, it's not like the jounin would take him seriously, at least.

 **35) Interest**

"My name is Sasuke Uchiha. My likes are…" he glanced over at Hatake and smirked. "…someone older.

"My dislikes…" He gave the jounin a very obvious look over. "…well, I'm sure I'll find out soon.

"And my dreams…"

He closed his eyes for a few seconds while copying the pervy squint-grin Hatake had used earlier.

"Mmmmm… I'll be looking forward to them."

Boo. Hatake didn't react.

He discreetly looked over at his teammates. Their scandalized expressions made this ruse worth it, even if it didn't end up working as planned.

 **36) Reconnaissance**

Maybe he was making a big fuss over nothing. Maybe Hatake was the god of jounin-sensei and could whip them up into shape in no time.

"Hatake? Oh, he's an odd one." _'Odd?'_

"…that stupid perv." ' _Guess he wasn't faking that.'_

"If I wasn't married, I'd tap that..." _'He has a mask on though…? Whatever, no judgement here.'_

"…he's a prodigy. Broke records left and right until the Fourth's death broke him. People are saying he's washed out." _'A has-been…?'_

"He hasn't passed a team yet, but I'm sure you'll be fine…" _'So he hasn't taught a genin team before. That's_ _…_ _unfortunate.'_

"He's always late; you'll get used to it, I'm sure…" _'Great, it's nice to know it wasn't just a one time thing.'_

He saved himself the best for last.

"Hatake, huh. He's an interesting one. He deserves you." _'What the hell is that supposed to mean?!'_

"So hypothetically speaking, what happens if I fail the exam?" Sasuke asked Kimura as nonchalant as possible.

His deputy looked up from his pile of paperwork to glare at him. "Don't. Or else."

Well then. That wasn't ominous.

Surely, whatever the _'or else_ ' Kimura mentioned couldn't be worse than being saddled with his current team, especially with a jounin-sensei like that…

 **37) Plotting**

He was going to do it. He was going to fail an exam. On purpose. Despite Kimura's death threat.

 _'Hermione, if you're watching me now, please don't kill me. It's for a good cause, I swear!'_

As expected, Hatake arrived late. Again. He appeared after a lovely three hours in which he decided to ignore Haruno and Uzumaki. It didn't seem to make a big difference regarding noise levels, so he assumed they were doing fine on their own.

Sasuke had to hand it to Hatake though; he's a devious bastard, making a test like this; no wonder he hasn't had to pass a team yet.

When Uzumaki started attacking Hatake, he decided to join in. It didn't matter if he didn't try terribly hard, right? They'd lose, Haruno would be unable to do anything on her own, and Hatake would fail them once he crushed their faces in the dirt… or something along those lines.

 **38) Plans**

Hatake kicked Uzumaki into a tree before sending a punch his way. He managed to dodge but still fell on the floor anyway, pretending to swoon.

"Oh, sensei, you're so eager. But I don't think I'm ready…"

He heard a furious screech behind him.

"Shannaro, don't corrupt Sasuke-kun!" Haruno yelled angrily while throwing a punch at the jounin. Hatake dodged when-

"Haha! The future Hokage won't be stopped by a stupid test like this."

Uzumaki rushed into the fight and swiped the bells from Hatake's belt. Successfully.

What.

 **39) Possessive**

So…. He had a team now…? Despite the fact that he didn't mean to, Sasuke was now stuck with these weirdos. Even if he didn't have high hopes for them, apparently, Hatake thought they had "potential", whatever that was supposed to mean.

At least he wouldn't have to deal with Kimura's "or else." And since these weirdos were his idiots now, he should probably attempt to keep their dumb asses alive.

 **40) Pest**

After doing D-rank missions nonstop for the past two weeks, Sasuke finally had enough.

"So, when are you teaching us anything, Kakashi- _sensei_?" Sasuke asked.

"What do you mean? Haven't you learned a lot already?"

"Why don't you tell me, _sensei_? I already knew how to pick fruit, clean houses, and get cats down from trees." He retorted back. "And I didn't realize that painting fences was an essential shinobi skill. You haven't even bothered training us either."

"Yeah, teme's right, Kakashi-sensei! Teach us some cool jutsu so we can be even more awesome ninjas!" Naruto demanded.

Hatake let out a deep sigh. "I'll think about it."

* * *

 **A/N:** So yeah, this set of chapters really didn't want to come out. There are like 5-10 scenes that I actually want written (one of them being 35 and another hopefully in the next set of 10), and the rest of them refuse to write themselves. I had like 31-36 done for weeks now, but I didn't want to give up writing in sets of 10 because I don't know how to write long fiction and I figure this is a not terrible way to eventually get there..?

Hope you guys are all doing good, and I'll hopefully update again soon/at least this year?


	5. Chapter 5

**41) Lesson**

"Since my cute students want to learn something, today will be dedicated to training," Hatake declares when he arrives the next morning, 2 hours late.

Apparently, he did think about it instead of brushing them off.

"We're going to learn how to climb trees!"

The three stare back at him balefully.

"We already know how to do that, sensei," Haruno finally replies.

Ignoring her, Hatake continues on. "…without your hands," he says with a squint-grin as he shakes his hands in the air.

"Wait, that's impossible," Naruto yells out.

"But I already know how to do that," Sasuke responds, mildly confused. "It's one of the prerequisites for the KPF."

"Oh, okay then," Hatake responds a bit confusedly, a little wrong-footed. "Why don't you demonstrate for us then, Sasuke?"

It's a tragic shame that he can't see Hatake's face when he walks up the tree.

 **42) Failure**

Since the other two don't know how to tree walk, the lesson continues on. Except when Sakura figures it out on her first try.

Well then.

Hatake, obviously a little put out that his lesson plan didn't go as expected, relocates them to a river, where he has them try water walking while Naruto continues to practice tree walking on the shore.

 **43) Useless**

"… then he made us spar in the river once we got the hang of it."

"That doesn't sound so bad," Chouji answers.

"…while he threw rocks at us once in a while when we weren't expecting it," Sasuke finishes. "Every time we lost concentration, we fell in. By the way, that river is freezing cold, it was windy and cloudy, and I was in a T-shirt and shorts."

Shikamaru snorts. "Awww," he teases. "You can't handle a small bath?"

"Piss off," Sasuke retorts. "So what have you guys been up to?"

"Oh, you know, the usual. Cloud watching, some shogi, D-ranks here or there," Shikamaru responds.

"Wait, your teacher isn't teaching you guys either?" Sasuke asks.

"Well, we're Ino-Shika-Cho. He knows our clans have been training us, so there's not really a point, I guess?" Chouji answers.

"So he's just being a glorified babysitter chaperoning you guys on D-ranks? That's dumb."

"Well, he plays shogi with me, which is nice. He also tried giving me one of those IQ test puzzle things I got when I was 7, so it should be interesting what he makes of that."

 **44) Regrets**

The next day, Naruto is tree walking perfectly fine. When Hatake brings up more river walking with a glint on his eye, for "Naruto's sake", Sasuke and Sakura are quick to protest.

"But I thought you guys wanted to learn something," Hatake says with a glint in his eye.

"Anything else, please, sensei!" Sakura replies.

"Anything, huh. That can be arranged," Hatake replies.

Sasuke feels dread creeping up his back.

 **45) Menace**

Kakashi takes them to meet Maito Gai, aka Green Spandex Man, and his team - Maito's mini-me, a long haired pretty boy, and a girl with buns in her hair. Sasuke recalls reading about Maito in numerous incident reports (mostly consisting of noise complaints from civilians), but even forewarned, he's still unprepared to face so much, "Youth!"

"Hey, Gai, you wanted to meet my team, right? They could do with more youthfulness, so why don't you and your team show them how it's done?"

Kakashi flees, like the bastard he is.

Maito yells enthusiastically at Kakashi's back, "It would be my pleasure, my Eternal Rival! Everyone! Let us be filled with the Springtime of Youth!"

"Yes, sensei!" Maito's mini-me responds. The two spandex clad ninjas start running into the distance. A sunset frames their figures, despite it still being day.

The long haired boy and the bun haired girl silently follow along behind them, seemingly resigned to their fate. Sasuke and his team grudgingly trail them as well.

 **46) Rivalry**

The whole thing is about as miserable as expected, and by the end, they're all collapsed on the floor, panting for breath. All but Naruto, who's loudly bonding with Rock Lee, over their "youthful manliness" or something; Sasuke's too tired to care.

Tenten - the bunhead - looks at him and Sakura before smirking.

"Hey, watch this."

She then hollers at her bowl cut teammate, "Hey Lee, are you replacing your Eternal Rival? I think Neji's looking a little neglected over here."

Neji throws her one of dirty looks he's ever seen before he's besieged by Lee.

"My Eternal Rival! I apologize for making you feel that way. Let us renew our rivalry with a race!" Lee yells enthusiastically.

"Such youthful students I have! Yosh, Lee, Neji. First one to the base of the Hokage Mountain wins!"

Neji groans but gets himself off the floor in preparation.

"Ready, set, GO!"

They all start running, leaving Team 7, along with Tenten, behind. Sasuke and Sakura turn back to Tenten after the trio aren't visible.

"What did he do to you to deserve that?" Sasuke asks.

"He shouldn't have broken my kama last week," Tenten replies vindictively.

 _'Reminder: Don't ever piss her off.'_

 **47) Stiff**

When they see Kakashi the next day, he squint-smirks at their stiff movements.

"Well, it seems as though you were adequately trained yesterday. Maybe I should have you guys report to him every day," he muses.

"Oh, yeah, training with bushy brows was great," Naruto exclaims. "That sounds- Oww! Mmph!"

Sakura smacks him on the head, and Sasuke covers the blonde's mouth.

"While the experience was… illuminating," Sakura says tactfully, "we'd appreciate if our actual teacher was teaching us."

"Yeah, the D-ranks you gave us were great! And that water walking - I've never learned anything so fast. You're awesome." _'Please keep us away from Team Gai.'_

"Well, if my cute students missed me so much, I guess I have to oblige," Kakashi replies.

 **48) Newcomer**

Sasuke strolls into the KPF headquarters after their daily D-ranks ( _thank Amaterasu_ ) and does a double take at an unfamiliar face.

"I know I haven't been around as much since I'm busier lately, but what's up with the kid?" Sasuke asks as he walks into Kimura's office.

"You're a kid," Kimura retorts. "Besides, he's older than you."

The kid in question, a kind looking, gray haired boy, turns and waves at him. One of the mom cops ruffles his hair as she passes by him.

Very suspicious. Sasuke's eyes narrow while watching the intruder.

"He's an intern," Kimura explains.

"Since when do we have interns? And why didn't you tell me earlier?" Sasuke asks.

"It was in your paperwork last week."

Sasuke recalls the backlogged pile of paperwork currently strewn across the floors of his room.

"Ahaha, I just remember I have a team meeting to get to urgently, 'kay thanks, see you next week, Kimura. You're the best!" Sasuke rushes off.

 **49) Benevolent**

Kimura has the paperwork delivered to his house.

By the _intern_.

Sasuke fumes.

 **50) Flashback: Affirmative Action**

Kimura opens their weekly meeting with, "So, we got several complaints from the civilians about our hiring practices."

"What? What's wrong with my cops?"

"Apparently, our police force is seen as 'incompetent' because they're all female. A couple of them asked for the 'person in charge', and when I refused to take their case to placate them since it's something my officers can easily handle, they were offended. We're also apparently 'discriminating' against males here, according to them, despite having male leadership. And some of the more well-meaning ones worry that Hayashi-san's going to break her back." Kimura responds, exasperated with the situation.

"Hayashi-baa-san? You mean the one who kicked my ass, healed my injuries, kicked my ass again, and gave me 'consolation cookies' last week?" Sasuke exclaims.

"Yes, that one," Kimura responds. "They'd probably be implying that you're a perv as well for hiring an all-female workforce if you weren't a kid."

"So, what do we do? Just hire a token guy or two to shove in their faces? It's not like we hired all female on purpose. No qualified males applied, which indicates that they're not particularly interested, which is a shame. Aren't they supposed to think that being a policeman is cool?"

"Some of the more polite civilians suggested that we be more accommodating-" "With _what_?!" "And maybe sweeten the pot with higher pay-" "How the hell is that fair?!" "Or hire someone who doesn't any experience and let them prove themselves-" "Like an Academy student or a fresh Genin? That's a terrible idea!" "But you're an Academy student." "And that's why you're paid to babysit me, remember?"

Eventually, after much debate, they decided the civilian unrest wasn't worth the hassle and hired two of the older, hopefully more responsible, male Genin. They left their training in Hayashi-san's capable hands (and ignored any screams or whimpers from the training area).

* * *

 **A/N:** OMG, guys, I actually hit 50 (micro) chapters! How (not really important but still) exciting! (More exciting is the fact that I got to use it as an excuse to write a silly satire chapter because nothing really fit like I wanted.)

More importantly, is this an update so soon? Within the same month, even? Yes and no; I missed that cut off a little bit, but hey, 2 weeks is (ridiculously) good by my (terrible) standards. Either way, I hope you enjoyed this abnormally quick update; the next chunk(s) refuse to order themselves, and life always is happening, so you guys might have to wait a while for the next one.

Minor changes to my writing style have occurred (aka I'm trying to write in present tense instead of past tense); it probably doesn't make a big difference either way, but let me know what you think?

As usual, thank you all for your comments/support. I might not respond back often, but I really do appreciate you guys.


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